Cost of Discipleship - Part 11 — Leonard Ravenhill

Revival Born Through a Burden of Prayer

And one night he got a burden of prayer and he jumped up, he ran down the corridor in his pyjamas, it was a school with men only, and he ran down to what we call lecture hall number one, and he got down to pray.

He prayed until the sweat poured out through his pyjamas. He couldn't even hear the door clicking, the door clicking, the door clicking, the door clicking, the door clicking, before the hour was through, every man in the college was down on his face.

Jesus as Savior and Lord

That college has never had a revival before or since like that one, they were all preachers. They were men who eventually were scattered to the ends of the earth. You see this silly nonsense, you can have Jesus as your saviour but not as your lord, is purely unscriptural.

The Weakness and Timidity of Modern Christians

I believe we ought to be blazing mad about this situation. 95 of Christians in the nation are weak, God can't trust them with vision, He can't trust them with burden. You can't trust children with jewels, with no sense of values.

You can't trust them with something that needs bravery, they're too timid. You can't trust them with a burden, you'll break them. In the middle, and I'm through with this, in the middle of that marvellous, marvellous, unmatched hymn of love, that I'm sure was Paul's experience, he had found that love so amazing.

Paul’s Experience of Enduring Love

He had found love that's always patient, that's never rude. He had found that love that beareth all things, lashings, whippings. Even his revival party broke up. Spirit-filled men left him because they thought he was a fanatic.

In the middle of that amazing chapter, it comes to a bump, I think, Brother Gordy, I never understand, he cried. He suddenly breaks off and says, when I became a man, I've been as a conscious entry, that just as surely as the children of Israel knew when they got through the water and stepped on the promised land and said, this is God's country, there came a place in his life where he knew.

I believe it was after God had revealed himself to him, and after God had revealed himself in him, and ended up three intense years of study, he'd even been caught up into the third heaven. Do you wonder you can't find two minutes backsliding in his life?

I think he saw everything John saw, but God wouldn't let him write it down. Oh yes, it will be worth it all when we see Jesus, where between here and there, there's a thousand pitfalls. For some of you fellows, a pair of sparkling eyes.

Costly Obedience to God’s Calling

For some of you girls, a very promising young man. There's going to be a great preacher, and God wants you to burn your life out somewhere else. For some of you, just to be godly fathers and mothers, there's an awful scarcity of them right now.

Says a hymn writer, along my sinful heart was striving to obtain this promised rest, but when all my struggles ended, simply trusting, I was blessed. If you come to this altar this morning, I'm going to ask you to come for one thing, because all I know about an altar, it's for two things.

The Altar as a Place of Sacrifice and Death

Then, or in the Old Testament, for sacrifice and for death. I could take you to the place where I knelt once, when I was about 18. Considered to be the youth leader of the church, and we'd seen some souls saved.

I got the youth to meet on a Friday night at seven o 'clock, we prayed till nine. I got them to meet at six o 'clock Sunday morning, and we prayed. I went out in Sherwood Forest and prayed by myself. Weep and groan, because I'd read David Brainerd.

David Brainerd and a Life Burned Out for God

He did it, and I didn't know any better, and I'm glad I did it. I'm not embarrassed. Nobody else showed me a pattern. I sometimes think God sent me back to America for what I learned out of that one brief, abridged book of David Brainerd's.

The man that died at 28 years of age, burned out for God. Broken, weeping. The altar is for sacrifice, let's not cheapen it. The altar is for death. And then when we die, we rise again in newness of life.

The Anointing That Flows Beyond the Flesh

When the priest was anointed in the, what, Psalm 133, the oil, which is a continuous symbol of the Holy Ghost in Scripture. The oil was put upon his head, and it ran down his face. No, no, it ran down his beard, and it ran off his beard onto his garments, and it ran off his garments onto the floor.

It never touched the flesh. If you read about the 25th chapter there of Exodus, it says the anointing shall not come upon the flesh. If you anoint the flesh, you'll be cursed. There's so much flesh today.

Dying to Self and Seeking the Holy Spirit’s Anointing

So much of me, of self, of self-pity, self-interest, self-glory. I say if you come to this altar, come to die. Tell God I'm going to lose all my rights this morning. Tell him you'd rather live six months with the anointing of the Holy Ghost than another 60 years without it.

Tell him you're pledging your hands and your feet and your mind, all you know and all you don't know. Bring that wretched pride that's always getting at you, that envy that's eating you up, that jealousy that mars you, that temper.

Don't ask for help, ask God to nail it to the cross. Let's stand and sing this first hymn, shall we? Let's start singing. Yeah, we start and sing at the first verse. If you're coming, I'm not begging you to come.

I'm not worried whether you come or not. That doesn't worry me. But I'm asking you if you come. Don't just come for coming sake. Come to die.